


a careful dance on the knife's edge

by scornandivory



Series: the house of astarion [1]
Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: M/M, is this a meet cute? is this what a meet cute is?, no beta we die like we just pissed off a green hag, points at the albino chaos gremlin: i just think he's neat, protag for this is my wood elf ranger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28862670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scornandivory/pseuds/scornandivory
Summary: It's probably a bad idea to develop feelings for someone who introduces themself by threatening to slit your throat, but Kestrel isn't about to let something like common sense stop him.
Relationships: Astarion (Baldur's Gate)/Original Male Character(s)
Series: the house of astarion [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2110398
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	a careful dance on the knife's edge

Kestrel wouldn’t say he’s in love the second the knife scrapes the base of his throat, but it’s a near thing.

It’s not his finest moment on several levels, not least of which is the fact that he really should have seen it coming. Usually, Kestrel’s keen eye for detail is his best-known quality—and his new friend’s cries for help could, if he’s being honest, have been a bit more realistic—but, well. It’s been an odd day. Mind flayers and tadpoles and Avernus and whatnot. So there he is, back in the dirt, staring into a face comprised of ridiculous cheekbones and wine-colored eyes, and thinking _ah, shit._

The Man with the Knife to His Throat shushes him. The sound is strangely intimate for all that they’re out in the open and Kestrel is about one bad move away from bleeding out onto the ground, and it’s probably a pretty strong indicator of just how long it’s been since Kestrel last got laid that he actually has to repress a pleased little shudder. The man calls his neck lovely which apparently does it for Kestrel now and he headbutts his captor more out of a desire to not embarrass himself than any concern over the structural integrity of his jugular. There’s a heated confrontation that Kestrel is a little concerned might actual turn into a brawl—which, at close range, would favor his opponent—and then… the world goes dark, not like falling unconscious but like the sudden fall of night, and then he’s weaving through crowds, ears perked to try and hear… _something_ over the laughter that spills out of the taverns and inns he passes and thirstier than he’s ever been in his life. There’s another abrupt shift and then he’s back next to the crashed ship staring into the other elf’s eyes rather than through them. There’s a split-second pause as they both try to figure out what in the hells just happened and then his knife-wielding compatriot sweeps into an introduction.

 _Astarion_. Kestrel can tell a few things about Astarion just from looking at him, now that he knows to look. He’s dangerous, and he’s hiding something—that much is obvious, but Kestrel knows when to let someone keep their secrets. He’s polished to a shine to hide the sharpness of his edge. He’s just as pretty when he’s not holding a knife to someone.

The silver lining here is that having a mind flayer tadpole forcibly inserted into his eye socket means that Kestrel’s being absolutely fucked is only _partially_ down to his awful taste in men.

They manage to find others, which is nice. If you’re going to undergo a horrific metamorphosis, Kestrel supposes, you might as well do it in good company. Failing to find that, the random survivors of the ship you crashed on will do just fine. There’s certainly a range of characters soon trailing behind him. Gale, who seems just a bit too steady in light of their shared burden; Shadowheart, who’s pragmatic in a way he likes but would have a hard time justifying trusting; Lae’zel, who had a personality like acid and abs he could break rocks on; and then, finally, Wyll, larger-than-life and almost certainly hiding something nasty. They’re quite the traveling party, like a mismatched tea set from the secondhand store if teacups were liable to murder each other if left unsupervised.

He finds himself growing fond of all of them as the days go by. It’s almost certainly the mind-linking parasite chaining them together, but it’s not like he can really do anything about that now so he just… goes with it. He’s unsurprised but ever so slightly disappointed with himself when Astarion remains his favorite.

It might just be that he found him first, fought weird little brain creatures first, and convinced a pair of siblings to wander off looking for caves so they could inspect the body of their brother uninterrupted first. At times, it feels like he, Astarion, and Shadowheart, who they’d discovered a few hours after waking, are a separate group from the others. It’s probably Kestrel flattering himself—he’s always wanted to be part of the inner circle, and it seems childhood fantasies don’t fade even in light of uncertain doom—or maybe it’s an elf thing. But he can admit, even just to himself, that he likes Astarion. Just likes him. He’s animated and poised, unafraid to slip into conversations as he pleases in a way that Kestrel has always envied and never been able to imitate. He’s fun to listen to. There’s the neutral cadence of his voice for everyday conversation, the slip up into a higher range when he pouts or says something that would have gotten him gently tossed out of any of Kestrel’s previous traveling parties (Kestrel still found himself snickering at the way he’d said “a little novel” at times), and the low, rounded tone he took on when he wanted to threaten something or make a point with some force. He could say anything and make it sound charming, which, since he often advocated for everyone to follow their worst instincts, was probably something of a saving grace for him. And then there was the fact that Kestrel wasn’t blind. In the right lighting, Astarion went from good-looking to intimidatingly pretty. He was half a head shorter than Kestrel, which just meant Kestrel got a lot of looks from under the pretty sweep of the man’s eyelashes, casting thin shadows over his gemstone eyes. Kestrel found himself distracted more than once by the way his pale hair curled around his ears. It was the perfect length to grab a fistful of, really, and Kestrel could picture the way it would look threading through his fingers with alarming clarity. There was a certain cockiness to Astarion’s smiles that Kestrel was pretty sure he could wipe off his face in some mutually satisfying ways given half a chance. It’s a thought that gets him through several terse conversations with desperate tieflings, some frankly xenophobic druids, and the discovery of a talking skeleton who follows them back to camp. It also gets summarily pushed to the back of his mind.

Astarion is hiding something (as is everyone but Lae’zel, apparently) and Kestrel is fighting an increasingly uphill battle to remind himself that throwing caution into the wind just because it feels like his every move is just prolonging the inevitable and he hasn’t been this immediately attracted to someone in about a decade is, in fact, a bad idea. Besides, even if his world wasn’t imploding, there was really no good time to get heartsick over—of all things—a magistrate. Surprisingly, his restraint holds right until he comes out of a trance to find Astarion attempting to sink his fangs into the side of his neck.

This one he feels just a bit better about not having seen it coming. Sure, Astarion had fangs and red eyes and talked about corpses being a waste of blood and acted incredibly suspicious at all times, but he didn’t exactly dive for cover when the sun came up, which was something Kestrel had heretofore been pretty sure about being a big “NO” in the vampire rulebook. Just like the moment beside the wreckage of the ship, there’s a beat of silence before Astarion says “…shit” and Kestrel realizes the other elf—the _vampire_ —has considerately positioned himself with his solar plexus in easy elbowing range and follows through on that thought.

“You little—” Astarion goes tumbling back with a slightly winded snarl before pushing himself back to standing position, looming over Kestrel. The rage quickly drains away and is replaced by what appears to be a genuine panic. Kestrel can’t fault him for his distress; semi-famed monster hunter Wyll is snoring only a few feet away, and if Kestrel wakes the camp it’s unlikely there’s going to be much hesitation deciding which of the elves to rally behind. “Listen, it’s not what you think. I wasn’t going to hurt you.” Kestrel would say that Astarion sounded as though he was trying to comfort a wary stray if he could imagine a scenario where Astarion would ever comfort a wary stray. “I just needed—well. Blood.”

“I’m a bit curious how you planned to get that without hurting me,” Kestrel replies drily, then narrows his eyes as the words sink in. “Wait.”

It’s not that Astarion looks any different by firelight. It deepens the shadows in his face, brings out the sharp bone structure, maybe makes the cheekbones a bit gaunt, but there’s no sudden reveal. It’s just that seeing him like this, lit only by the moon and the campfire, something Kestrel’s brain hadn’t allowed itself to put together clicks into place. Somehow, the man in front of him is a vampire, and he’s hungry.

“Well, shit. I really should have seen this one coming, shouldn’t I? Found your last meal and everything.” Kestrel tilts his head as he peers up at Astarion, voice carefully neutral, face carefully blank. “How goes protecting us from vampires, Astarion?”

“It’s not what you think!” Astarion protests, then spins in an aborted half circle to make sure the rest of their camp still sleeps. If anyone else has awoken to witness Kestrel going through a series of paradigm shifts, they’re doing a good job of hiding it. “I’m not some _monster_ ,” he continues, voice lowered. “I feed on animals. Boar, deer, kobolds—whatever I can get. I’m just too slow right now. Too… weak. If I just had a little blood, I could think clearer. Fight better. Please.”

 _One of the things on that menu was not like the others,_ Kestrel thinks. “Hell of a way to ask for a blood sample,” he says, the words coming out with just a bit more snap than he intended.

“Look, I thought that if I told you, you’d, well. Drive a stake through my heart, most likely. I needed you to trust me. And you _can_ trust me.” He shoots Kestrel the hangdog look he’s so good at, and Kestrel has to bite his tongue so he doesn’t accidentally say something stupid, like _I can_ _’t, you’re too pretty for me to trust, every time I want to give you the benefit of the doubt it’s impossible for me to tell if you’re actually being honest with me or if you just have long eyelashes._

Instead he says, “I trust you. For now. But if I wake up like this one more time, so help me, Astarion—”

“—you won’t. Thank you.” Astarion cuts him off, which is just as well. Kestrel hadn’t actually known how he was going to end that threat. The look on his face doesn’t necessarily stray away from the mixture of panic, gratitude, and wariness it’s settled into, but it does take on a faint gleam of what Kestrel thinks might be determination. It’s the look of a man about to say something that has the potential to take his circumstance from bad to catastrophic. “Do you think you could trust me a little further? I only need a taste. I swear.” The words come out haltingly, like he doesn’t want to ask but doesn’t have as much of a choice in the matter as he’d like. Maybe that’s why Kestrel says yes, why he lies back and brushes his hair away from his neck.

More likely, it’s because he’s got a pretty boy paying attention to him, which is the well-documented origin of most of his bad decisions.

It doesn’t feel the way he thought it would when Astarion sinks his teeth into his neck. It’s a cold pain, like all the other times he’s been stabbed, and then it fades into a prickling numbness. Beyond that, though, beyond all the physical, there’s a feeling of intense, unwavering connection, like two trees drawing from the same roots. Astarion’s teeth in Kestrel’s neck, Kestrel’s blood in Astarion’s throat. The pain is still there, barely; it’s just a dull, throbbing ache under everything else. Kestrel wishes it were more distracting, but pain’s never really taken away from his pleasure before. He tries to focus on the sensation, to keep his mind in the present, but there’s just a pleasant haze. He could wrap himself up in this feeling and just… sink down into sleep, the way humans do. It could be so nice.

Kestrel’s eyes snap wide as a thread of fear unspools in his belly, some survival instinct doing it’s damnedest here in the eleventh hour. “Astarion,” he rasps, “that’s enough.” Astarion doesn’t heed him. No, it’s more than that; he doesn’t even seem to hear him. Whatever daze Kestrel had found himself it, it seems Astarion is even more affected. On some level, it’s flattering, but on all other levels Kestrel doesn’t actually want to die right now even if there’s an amiable skeleton a short walk away willing to bring him back from the grave. He tries again. “Stop, that’s too much.” Still nothing. Hells, how is no one else waking up for this?

When Kestrel was a young boy, he and his siblings had assumed that when someone said they’d gotten grabbed “by the short and curlies,” that meant they had gotten grabbed somewhere below the waistline. They’d giggle amongst themselves any time someone used the phrase around them, certain they’d caught onto a dirty joke no one had realized they knew about yet. They’d felt mature, clued in. Then Kestrel’s mother had stumbled across their interpretation and Kestrel had stood there, cheeks burning, as she howled in laughter before sitting down and explaining that it meant the hair at the nape of your neck. It had confused Kestrel a bit—his hair wasn’t any curlier there, just wispier—but he’d been too embarrassed to ask for clarification. Somehow, the memory of running the fingers over the short hairs at the back of his neck is what stands out to Kestrel as he forces one numb, tired hand up to grab the hair collecting at the base of Astarion’s skull, twisting, and yanking backwards with all his might.

Astarion detaches from his neck with a gasp, looking down at Kestrel with lidded eyes. Kestrel’s hand is still in his curls, keeping his head tilted back and away, and his nostrils flare ever so slightly. He looks almost drunk, which is really just a polite way of saying he looks just a bit fucked out. It’s not really helping the fact that Kestrel needs to be mad at him right now.

“Ah, of course. I was just swept up in the moment.” Astarion’s breathing heavily and Kestrel honestly can’t be sure if it’s because vampire spawn are actually subject to lung capacity, if it’s just residual instinct, or if it’s for his benefit. Whatever it is, it continues to be distracting. “But it worked. I feel good. Strong. _Happy_.”

“Well,” Kestrel says, carefully prodding at the dual wounds on his neck, “great. I look forward to seeing you in a fight.”

Astarion’s face twists into amusement. “Well, now, that shouldn’t take long. So very many people need killing. Now if you’ll excuse me, you’re invigorating but I need something more filling.” He turns and, with a confident gait Kestrel hesitates to call “stalking” only because it’s cliche, makes his way into the forest. There’s a twinge of pity for any unsuspecting boars (or kobolds, apparently) that’s interrupted when Astarion stops, turning partway around and calling, “this is a gift, you know. I won’t forget it.”

“Glad to bleed memorably,” Kestrel mutters as he tries to situate himself enough to get back into a trance so he’s decently well rested for when Lae’zel drags them through new territory in an attempt to find her mystical tadpole cure. He thinks he might here a quiet snort of laughter, but it could just be the wind, or any number of ambient sounds coming from the wood. Astarion is gone when Kestrel is finally comfortable and glances around the little clearing, which is both comforting and not, and Kestrel finds himself a bit too distracted to slip easily back into his trance. His ears remain vigilant for the sound of something in the gloom being mauled by the undead, and there’s an unsteady sense of apprehension building as he waits for the realization that he could have died very easily a moment ago to come crashing through him. It does not. Somewhere behind his left eye, a tadpole writhes. Somewhere to the west, goblins caw and jeer. A short walk would take him to the wreckage of the ship he’d been trapped on as it was driven into the ground by dragon riders. By comparison, Astarion nearly draining him is just another thing that’s happened to him lately, and with their skeletal friend nearby life’s never felt so cheap. In the space where fury and terror should go is just a numb acceptance. That, and the knowledge that he’d been right about the feel of Astarion’s hair.

 _Stop that,_ he thinks in the general direction of his lap. Even if the thought of creeping away from his sleeping companions to have a few furtive moments with himself and his left hand in the woods were at all appealing, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t actually have enough blood to actually accomplish anything. Still, there’s a warm feeling that fuzzes down his spine and pulses in the space between his hips. It’s dulled by exhaustion, both physical and mental, but it’s there and it’s. Well. A bit embarrassing. 

He’s not pleased that he has to use the meditative breathing he’d been taught as a child to return to his trance, but then, it’s been a night. He finds a thread of that bone-deep weariness and follows it to its source, sinking deeper and deeper into his own mind as he goes. He releases himself from confusion, from shock, from shame, and from desire; there will be time for that in the morning. There will be time for answers in the morning. For now, all there is a steady breath in and out and the notion that he shouldn’t feel as safe as he does knowing someone who very nearly killed him is lurking somewhere out of sight. And then there nothing but the feeling of floating in a black ocean, untethered from his body and letting the waves rock him to tranquility.

**Author's Note:**

> local man discovers he's a monster fucker, more at eleven. also i just think there should be something besides a persuasion check to make astarion not enmurder you when he drinks, y'know?
> 
> a little more about my ranger: he's a keeper of the veil/beast tamer/colossus slayer wood elf with the folk hero background whose dump stat is charisma and prefers talking to animals most of the time. he's very wooden (heh) and doesn't suffer fools gladly. mostly he resists using the tadpole's powers, but he will if he has to. i'm love him very much.
> 
> anyways i'm jaymonthy on tumblr and @dovetaildarling on twitter, astarion fuckers always welcome.


End file.
